It’s been over a year now (since October 2024) that I started switching my typing habit from QWERTY to Colemak. So, this October 2025, I decided to take on a new challenge by ordering an Ortholinear (5 x 12) keyboard to give it a try!

It took about 10 days to arrive here in Thailand from https://th.aliexpress.com/item/1005009139078480.html. I ordered just the board—no switches or keycaps—so I could customize it myself, as you can see in the picture 😄

I got the keyboard on Saturday, and here’s my Sunday test result from https://10fastfingers.com. Not too bad! I’m hoping it’ll keep getting better and better. Still need to tweak a few keys like the spacebar, caps lock, and backtick to fit my coding style.

After using my ortholinear keyboard for 2 weeks, I just hit a new personal best of 60 wpm on a 100-word test! I really think the ortholinear layout helps boost typing speed since your fingers don’t have to travel as far.